Amsterdam

On Friday, October 24, I arrived in Amsterdam with my parents. Their trip to belatedly celebrate their 25 anniversary coincided with the Assembly's recess, so I not only got to see them, but I also got to travel with them.
Once we got settled in, we wandered around the city, dodging more bicycles than I've ever seen.

I didn't expect to see so many rivers, but the Dutch certainly know how to accent them: curvy bridges, lights, and lines of trees. Between the rivers and the maze of gray buildings containing stores, it was easy to get lost.
Until one runs smack into the red light district.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate a woman's body as much as any man (in fact, I'll wager, more so). I also think that if our society insists on engaging in prostitution, it should be legal and regulated.

However, this red light district infuriated me. Women in windows with men in black clothes, snarling as if they were sizing up steak. Shadowy figures leaning against corners, ready to negotiate deals with the sleazy men who wanted to pay for a woman's body.

These men seemed to have one purpose in this district: fantasy sex without emotion or ties, completely rationalized by throwing a few coins at the receptacle they used, like a toilet.

"Look at that!" one man shouted at a woman gyrating in the window.

"That? We're thats now? She's not even a human being?" I protested loudly enough that a few men glared at me.

I heard many other comments I'd rather not mention and saw inconsiderate asses throwing things at the windows.

Needless to say, I fled the district as soon as possible, to angry even to talk about it with my parents.

The next day, I found a spectacular looking coffee house called Dampkring. Its sign looked like stained glass, and from the moment I walked in, I knew I found a good place.
I ended up sitting at the bar, talking to a group of Canadians about everything from law to music to news to politics to university.

Later, I sat with a local who told me a scene from Ocean's 12 was filmed there.

So, so far, I'd covered sex, culture, and movies on my trip. Now, I just needed history and literature.

Easy enough: the Anne Frank house offered both in abundance, with a tremendous amount of emotion.

I don't know how he did it, but my Dad managed to get us tickets that allowed us to skip the incredibly long line and begin the tour immediately. The beginning rooms with the timeline, media and memorabilia were interesting enough, but time stops the moment you see the hole in the wall where the bookshelf hid so many lives.

Up the narrow, steep staircase we walked, to bare rooms with creaky floors. Anne was here, once, and her family, and two other families... and most of them died gruesome deaths.

That any human being could treat another that way seems incomprehensible to me. That was the point, though, wasn't it: Jews were not human beings to the Nazis.

How many groups do some human beings dehumanize because of perceived differences? Prostitutes, homosexuals, Muslims, drug addicts, people with different skin colors... Mind you, I haven't seen any of them shipped off to concentration camps to die of disease and starvation; but the caustic jokes, the hatred so poorly concealed, the threats...

Call me naive, but I don't understand why we can't all respect each other and help each other through this world, which is traumatic enough without our participation or compliance with its cruelty.